cbc.ca
Natuashish booze-smuggling operation busted: RCMP
Last Updated: Monday, July 14, 2008 | 4:10 PM NT
CBC News
Sgt. Wayne Newell says the RCMP believe the new booze ban in Natuashish is having a positive effect in the community. Sgt. Wayne Newell says the RCMP believe the new booze ban in Natuashish is having a positive effect in the community. (CBC)
Police said Monday they had charged five people over an operation to import booze to a northern Labrador community that narrowly voted this winter to go dry.
RCMP said officers in Natuashish had also seized about $12,000 worth of alcohol and drugs, as well as $3,900 in cash.
Residents in the Innu community decided in January, amid heavy opposition, to ban alcohol and drugs from the reserve.
RCMP said the seizures were made between Thursday and Saturday following searches of two homes in Natuashish and arrests made at the Natuashish airport.
The five people were charged under the Controlled Drug and Substance Act and the Indian Act.
Three males are residents of Sheshatshiu, the Innu community in central Labrador, while a male and female live in Natuashish.
They together face 13 charges, including possession for the purpose of trafficking and supplying alcohol on a dry reserve.
Sgt. Wayne Newell said RCMP have laid about 150 charges since this winter. Most have involved public intoxication, although the police have also laid charges involving distribution of alcohol.
"It's not the first. It's certainly the largest, though," Newell told CBC News Monday.
Newell said crime rates dropped by about 50 per cent in the weeks immediately after the alcohol ban took effect.
"Now, things have started to climb up again lately. Whether or not any conclusions can be drawn, it's probably too early to tell," Newell said. "We believe that it has had a positive effect on the crime rate."
Residents of Natuashish voted 76-74 on Jan. 31 to allow the band council and police the authority to search materials flown into the community.
Natuashish was founded in 2002, after residents left behind decades of strife and appalling living conditions in nearby Davis Inlet. The federal government constructed the new community, partly in response to international outrage over images of child addicts who sniffed and huffed gas fumes out of plastic bags. |
